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“A stage play? What?”
“It’d be fun! Come on Arisa, please come with me?”
“F-fine, but you’re paying for my ticket!”
“Okay!”
Arisa recalled the conversation vividly. Although it wasn’t a particularly long or significant one, it stood out to her immensely. Not only how unusual it was for Kasumi to want to go out to a play of all things, but the framing of it as well. They were alone, in fact Kasumi had specifically taken her aside during a practice. It was just the two of them, and Kasumi individually asked her to come. It was completely unexpected, ever since Poppin Party had been fully formed, Kasumi never really asked her to hang out individually, it was always in a group, and although she did like that, she missed the days when she had Kasumi all to herself. Though she would never dream of admitting it.
If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve said it was like being asked out on a date. But of course, it couldn’t be. Firstly Kasumi simply didn’t seem interested. Secondly, if she were to ask her out she would probably do it much more directly, and add plenty of platitudes about sparkling and shining and whatnot. And third, Kasumi would ask her out to something a bit more romantic for a date, rather than just a play. At least, Arisa liked to think so.
Despite her dismissal, she still couldn’t get the thought out of her head. It lurked in the back of her mind constantly, influencing her like a puppetmaster.
By now she must have gone through six or seven outfits. None of which satisfied her. They were too bright, too clashing, too dull, really they were too anything Arisa could think of. The only uniting factor of them all was that none of them were perfect. Regardless of how frustrating it was, the energy she felt never faded, it circulated like electricity, rushing around the wires that were her veins. Once again, she looked into her cupboard, by now she was running low on clothes, but still she scoured it, determinedly looking for the right thing to wear.
Although she had secured her outfit, the battery at the centre of her chest didn’t yield, continuing to beat fast, the thought of Kasumi spurring it to increase. Now was a far harder piece of preparation. “What do I say?” she pondered. “I don’t wanna look stupid in front of her. I’ve gotta seem cool.” She started out by setting the scene. She and Kasumi, meeting up just outside her house. “Hm, Kasumi would be late.” she thought, changing her imaginary scenario to reflect that. She’d wait for Kasumi, who would run up to her and hug her, as she tended to do. Before she could continue her plot, involuntary imagery began to accompany the thoughts. Simple things like Kasumi holding the hug unusually long, or holding her hand as they walked. Arisa shook her head, trying to shake the thoughts out, however it didn’t work. So she attempted again, shaking her head more violently and desperately, her twintails flapping around and hitting her as she did. The thoughts disappeared for the time being, but largely just because she was dizzy.
“Arisa, what are you doing?” Kasumi questioned, her voice suddenly emerging from the silence behind her. Quickly Arisa turned to face the source of the sound, finding her face inches away from Kasumi’s.
“Ah!” she squeaked, all but leaping back. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
“Your grandma let me in! She saw me waiting outside and told me to just come in and see you.” she chirped chipperly.
“Of course she did…” Arisa grumbled, while she loved her grandma, she wished she wouldn’t set her up with Kasumi. Not because she didn’t want Kasumi, but because having your grandma as a sort of wingman was embarrassing. And also that her grandmother was very indiscriminate. Kasumi would be let in whenever, giving Arisa little to no time to prepare. Preventing her from having any tact whatsoever. “You could’ve just waited for longer, I’m nearly ready.” she snapped.
“I was waiting. But you said you’d be out half an hour ago so I got worried.” she explained.
“O-oh.” Arisa mumbled. “Shit, are we going to be late?” she rushed over to the corner of the room, grabbing her phone and purse. Immediately she checked the time. The show still didn’t start for quite a while.
“No, you made us organise everything super early.” Kasumi complained. “That was really mean, I wanted to sleep in longer…” she rubbed her eyes to illustrate her point, rather than out of actual necessity. She looked like a cat, with her hair and hand motion combined. Arisa stared briefly, drawn to the appealing sight.
“You can have a lie in tomorrow. You’re the one who wanted to go to this anyway!” Arisa grumbled, walking past her and opening the door. “Look. I’m sorry for being late.” she said genuinely. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Okay!” Kasumi replied, striding past Arisa excitedly. As she passed their hands briefly brushed against eachother, reminding Arisa of her earlier fantasy, where Kasumi held her hand as she walked with her. She blushed, glaring down at the floor in a bid to disguise her true feelings.
Being one for denying expectation, especially Arisa’s, Kasumi didn’t go to the entrance of the house, instead heading downstairs to the dining room. “Wh-what? Where are you going?” Arisa asked. “Aren’t we leaving?”
“Aw, no! Your grandma made all this breakfast for us, we have to eat it!” She declared, kneeling down across from said grandma and beginning to pick and choose the food she wanted.
Grumbling, Arisa kneeled down next to her, only watching her as she ate and not eating anything at all herself. “Hm?” Kasumi tilted her head, her sound of confusion muffled by the food in her mouth. Translated, she would be asking something akin to “Why’re you staring at me?”
“You’re like a black hole when it comes to food.” she muttered.
Probably too focused on the food, she ignored the comment. When she swallowed her bite, she grew oddly silent, scanning over the table intently. “What’re you doing?” Arisa piped up from beside her.
The next thing she knew, Kasumi was holding up a piece of fish to her mouth. “Open up.” she told her cheerily.
“Wh-what are you doing?” Arisa snapped, leaning back away from her, glaring at the fish suspiciously.
“Well you always forget to eat breakfast, so I need to make sure you do it! And I’ll do that by feeding you!” she explained with glee, she was enjoying the idea of feeding Arisa far too much for her taste. Arisa grumbled, mumbling under her breath that it was weird and she didn’t like it. “Aw come on, please?” Kasumi pleaded.
Amidst a mess of grumbles and irritated little noises, she heard a “Fine”. Kasumi beamed, holding up the fish to her once more. Tentatively, Arisa opened her mouth and ate it. Her grandmother’s cooking was, as always, really, really good.
Kasumi giggled, holding up more to her. “Here Arisa, have some more!”. Arisa accepted, less reluctantly this time. This repeated, with Kasumi happily feeding Arisa and Arisa gradually less awkwardly eating.
“Aw, you’re so cute.” Kasumi said, leaning on her hands and gazing at Arisa. If she didn’t know any better, she would say Kasumi was looking at her lovingly. But of course, she didn’t believe that, not for a minute.
“I-I’m full! And now we’ve wasted even more time, come on, let’s go!” Arisa stammered and shouted, rising to her feet a little too quickly and stumble-sprinting out of the room.
She slid her shoes on, checking the route on her phone once more as she waited for Kasumi to arrive. A matter of seconds later, they both had their shoes prepared and they were off. They began their walk down the road, the opposite way they went to school. It was sort of weird to Arisa, she was used to walking to school with Kasumi, but there were so many places she had never been with her. “Maybe later.” she thought.
As they reached their first crossing, something seized Arisa unexpectedly. It was almost otherworldly, something that she would only expect in her dreams. Kasumi had taken a hold of her hand. “Wh-wh-wh-what are you doing?” she exclaimed, angry in her signature flustered Arisa way.
“I’m holding your hand! I always do it when I cross the road with people. With my Mum, my sister. Even O-Tae!” she said smiling, completely unfazed by Arisa’s outburst. She was used to them by now. “It helps me make sure we’re both safe and that you won’t just walk off when there are cars.”
“I wouldn’t do that anyway!” Arisa barked. A real, heated anger now permeating her words. It’s flame was fueled by feelings of unimportance and jealousy. She did it with everyone, she wasn’t special. She even did it with Tae. While she was good friends with Tae, her feelings of jealousy toward her still hadn’t fully faded. Hearing that just reminded her of when Kasumi went and spent all of her time with Tae, leaving her alone. It was a bad time for her, it probably mattered to her way more than it should have. She felt stupid for it in retrospect, but she couldn’t forget the overwhelming feeling of loneliness that hit her. Just as she got close to Kasumi too…
They both fell silent, Kasumi didn’t let go of her hand though. And as bitter as she felt, it still got to Arisa a bit more than she would’ve liked.
They crossed the road. Kasumi still didn’t let go.
Arisa felt her face grow hot, all of the thoughts from before began to burn up, turning to smoke and being blown away by the winds of change. She didn’t dare acknowledge it, as if drawing attention to it would cause it to go away. The two of them simply walked, joined by their hands. Kasumi walked loosely and comfortably, clearly extremely satisfied with herself and her situation. In contrast, Arisa was very upright and stiff, still struggling to get accustomed to her fantasy coming to life.
Before either of them knew it, they were just outside the theatre. As they stopped to look over the entrance, a voice cut through the little world of their own that they were in. “You know, I know you’re one of my kittens, but you don’t have to take it so literally.” Kaoru said, placing a hand on top of Kasumi’s head, petting the ear-like protrusion of hair. She loomed over the two of them, her friendly smirk bearing down on them.
“Ah, Kaoru! Hi!” Kasumi chirped. “Are you going to see the show too?”
Kaoru snickered. “Of course I am.” each word was accompanied by some new over the top gesture. “It’s Romeo and Juliet, one of my favourites. And better yet, the title roles are being played by two exceptionally cute princesses.” she sighed happily. “I’m excited.”
“But enough about that, there’s a cute princess right in front of me that needs attending to.” she dismissed, turning her attention to Kasumi. “So, when did you get such an interest in theatre?”
“Oh, well Rimi-Rin was actually telling me about some of your performances, it sounded really cool! So I decided we should go see one.” she elaborated. “But you aren’t doing any at the moment, so we came to see this one instea-”
“Oh, you were interested in seeing me? I’m flattered, truly. It’s a shame I’m not on stage at the moment, but I could always give you a-” she emphasised the next part with a tempting tone. “Private performance.”
“Sounds fun! Wanna go Arisa?”
Arisa snapped out of her focus, she had been glaring at Kaoru for the whole time, growing more and more agitated with each and every word she said. She was pretty sure she was even snarling whenever she flirted with her. “Uh. No.” she said, she wasn’t even exactly sure of the context, but if it involved Kaoru, she wasn’t interested.
“Well, it’s more of a one on one thing anyhow.” Kaoru said, smiling confidently at Kasumi.
“Aw, but everything is more fun with friends!” Kasumi insisted.
Kaoru sighed fondly. “Just as I’d expect of you. You really adore your friends. It’s one of your greatest aspects. But I wonder… How would you treat a lover?” she hummed, pondering the question, before divulging attention to Kasumi, expecting an answer.
“I don’t know, I guess I’d treat them the same as I normally do.” she shrugged, beaming. Arisa blushed, noting how Kasumi, aside from the hand holding, had been treating her the same as normal. Granted it was all too possible it was only wishful thinking, after all. Who’s to say she wasn’t treating her normally because the situation was just normal to her.
“Hm, I see.” she nodded in understanding. “I respect that, but personally, I’d try to make my lover feel like a real princess. I’d be a dashing prince and sweep her off her feet. Does that kind of thing sound good to you, kitten?”
Arisa listened carefully for her response, although she couldn’t stand Kaoru’s stupid questions, finding out what Kasumi liked romantically would be invaluable to her. Unfortunately, she learned nothing, as Kasumi merely shrugged.
Placing her chin in her hands, she nodded in understanding. “I see,I see. Well, I trust you’ve never been here before? Please, allow me to show you around.” she held out a hand, in what she would describe as a princely manner. Kasumi took it excitedly, being caught up within Kaoru’s entertaining act.
“Thank you very much.” she said, leading Kasumi in. Arisa followed, nearly growling with anger at how Kaoru had just swiped Kasumi away. She saw how they held hands, it as far different to how she and Kasumi had, she was being lead, and their hands didn’t intertwine nearly as intimately, but the mere fact it was happening was enough to infuriate her.
“So, where are your seats?” Kaoru asked once they had reached the hall, it was entirely barren, they were obviously the first to arrive. Arisa would’ve appreciated being alone with Kasumi, but unfortunately it was ruined by a certain purple haired girl.
“Hopefully far away from you.” Arisa muttered, expecting Kaoru to be too caught up in her own ego to hear what she had said. Unfortunately, she was only blind to reality, not deaf to it. So she turned and looked at her curiously, unaware of what she had said, but aware she had spoken. “O-over there.” Arisa squeaked, pointing to the middle-left of the room, they weren’t the best seats, but they were cheap and good enough. She ducked behind a chair when she spoke, concealing the majority of her face and body. Normally she would have just hidden behind and clung to Kasumi, but in the current situation, it just didn’t feel right.
“Oh, those won’t do. Not for someone as lovely as you.” Kaoru said, taking Kasumi’s hand again and kneeling before her. “Please, princess. Let me escort you to a personal box.”
Kasumi’s eyes turned to stars, sparkling with amazement. “Wow! Can you really do that?”
“Of course, the staff here love me, I’m one of their prized actors. So they allow me to use any boxes that’re free..” she smiled wide, prideful of her status within the little community of the theatre.
“That’s amazing! Let’s go!” Kasumi exclaimed, nearly bouncing with excitement.
Chuckling, she took Kasumi’s hand once more, leading her out of the room eagrely. “Certainly.”
Once they arrived in the box, Kasumi bounded around, inspecting every aspect of it energetically. “This is amazing! Thank you Kaoru!”
“You’re very welcome.” she replied, bowing overdramatically to her.
As more and more people gradually poured in, taking their seats, Kaoru continued her inan flirting, and Kasumi continued being utterly oblivious. And, in direct correlation, Arisa grew angrier and angrier, seething with rage toward the taller girl. She was like an angry little chihuahua, shaking with pure wrath.
“Ah, looks like the show is about to start. Come and sit down.” Kaoru announced, taking a seat and looking expectantly at Kasumi, who sat next to her. Arisa reluctantly followed suit, sitting on Kasumi’s other side. “Now, the show does get a little terrifying. So please, don’t be scared to cling to me. I’ll protect you.” Kaoru explained.
Arisa could feel something reaching a breaking point. A volcano of fury beginning to crack its way through the earth, signs of an eruption already emerging, a tempestuous storm of ash and flame spreading across the sky, warning the populace that something far bigger, and deadlier, was coming. In reality, it manifested as her shifting closer to Kasumi, and shooting the darkest, most aggressive glare at Kaoru.
“And well, if you find yourself wanting a romance like the one on stage, I’m here for that too. Albeit less tragic.” she proclaimed.
Arisa, of course, was already angry. But that line, and the accursed wink that accompanied it. Grew too much for her. The volcano had erupted with full force now, leaving destruction everywhere about it, burning up the landscape and disfiguring it forever. In reality, this manifested as something even more unexpected, more dramatic, than the volcanic proportions of her anger.
She took Kasumi’s chin in her hands, turning her away from Kaoru and toward her. And then she forcefully kissed her, holding it for a few seconds. Kasumi did nothing to protest, she was shocked, but she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been wanting it for a long while now.
Before anyone could fully process what happened, the show began, the curtains opened and the opening lines were spoken. Ultimately, Arisa forgot everything that happened in the show. The only memory of that period she retained was just as it began, right after they had kissed, Kasumi sliding her hand into hers, and holding it the whole time.